Mary Lou Seymour is a long-time libertarian activist and author. She lives in South Carolina. CLICK HERE FOR RATIONAL REVIEW NEWS DIGEST SUPPORT OUR
SPONSORS WHY AREN'T YOU A SPONSOR?
Would you like
to help support Liberty Action of the week? Donate by credit card or direct donations via PayPal ALTERNATE ACTIONS For even more actions, or to discuss this column, visit LibertyForum's Take Action Forum! Coalition
against the AW Ban Support Fair
Labeling Libertarian
Resources: Adopt a Highway |
Liberty Action
of the Week First, kudos for all those who participated in last week's action, "Defend free speech rights." Contacting the mainstream press in Florida definitely worked! Tim Condon reports that he's now been interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, the Orlando Free Press, and the St. Petersburg Times. Keep an eye out for those stories. Also, contacting the NRA seems to have, at least, brought their attention to the matter, and they're sending out a standard response to inquiries: "The NRA did not call for Mr. Condon's arrest. The parties involved in this matter are Mr. Condon, the Orange County Convention Center and the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Sincerely, NRA Member Communications." As the heat continues, expect the NRA, the convention center and the Sheriff Dept. to point the finger at each other. More as it develops. While hunting around for this week's action, I noticed a number of recent articles dealing with the resemblance of "Neo America" to fascism (Hitler style, Mussolini style, etc.) This has been a recurrent theme with anti-establishment writers, particularly on the left, ever since the 2000 election, building with the "militarization" of America since 9/11, the loss of civil liberties under the Patriot Act, and the "blitzkrieg" invasion of Iraq. But there have been an unprecedented number of new articles published lately including "Are we the new nazis?" (Douglas Herman); "The other 'f' word" (Ben Tripp) and "Fascism anyone?" (Lawrence W. Britt). Hmmm. Is the meme that fascism is fascism, whether wrapped in red white and blue or swastikas, beginning to spread? Discuss this
article on And then a reader sent me a link to a White House press release, from the real White House, not the satire site, in which our glorious leader Herr Bush apparently proclaimed May 1 to be "Loyalty Day." "Today, America's men and women in uniform are protecting our Nation, defending the peace of the world, and advancing the cause of liberty. The world has seen again the fine character of our Nation through our military as they fought to protect the innocent and liberate the oppressed in Operation Iraqi Freedom .... The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as 'Loyalty Day,' and I ask all Americans to join me in this day of celebration and in reaffirming our allegiance to our Nation." OK, so I'm 2 weeks late with this. I had toyed with the idea of a May Day action alert column, you know, to publicize how the old pagan holiday (banned by the church) and "anti-authority" peasant celebration ("Lord of Misrule") and worker's holiday (which originally commemorated the Haymarket Square anarchist strike for the 8 hr work day and was swiped by the Commies as "International Workers Day") had been morphed by the establishment in America and Canada into "Law Day" in the late 1950s; but while interesting, it didn't really have current relevance. I didn't hear about "Loyalty Day" 'til last week, and the juxtaposition of the current crop of articles on fascism with the Prez proclaiming May Day as the ultimate in fascist holidays (Loyalty Day) makes this too good an opportunity for "political consciousness raising" to miss. As you may recall, I consider "consciousness raising" to change the culture in our society to one that respects individualism and fights for freedom, that values liberty over loyalty, the most important activity we liberty activists can engage in. Lasting change only comes from the bottom up; in order for a system to change on more than a fleeting basis, the culture that created the system must change. Right now, there are still too many folks out there, not just in "middle America" but in the freedom movement itself, that are simply closing their eyes to what is happening in America, right now, under our very noses. "Bush isn't Hitler, Mary Lou," they say. "There aren't any dead Jews or concentration camps." "It's not really fascism," they say, "we still have a free market." "It's not really imperialism, Mary Lou, why we're just liberating oppressed Iraqis." "It's only terrorists that are being held without due process in Guantanamo, Mary Lou, if you're not a terrorist, you don't have to worry." Uh huh. If the current apologias from the apologists for the Bush Regime don't bring to mind the famous Niemoller quote "First they came for the Jews," what will? So, for this week's action, let's take advantage of the recent "Loyalty Day" proclamation and the recent crop of excellent articles on the similarities in Neo America to the rise of fascism to help our fellow freedom fighters AND middle America start to recognize what's going down ... and not "wait til they come for me." We certainly can't depend on the education system (which barely touches on the rise of fascism in its pablumated studies of history) or the statist mainstream media to point out the similarities; we're too far down the road for that. So, here's what we do. For meatspace, print out your favorites of the articles I mention (I mention them not only cause they're good, and recent, but they fit on an 8 1/2x11 paper) and copy onto the back of Herr Bush's "Loyalty Day" proclamation, and distribute them in your regular "community outreach locales" (laundromat, bus stop, bulletin boards, public restrooms, library, etc.). And, of course, a few LTEs and calls to talk radio couldn't hurt. And don't forget you can surreptitiously post some of Kent von Cleave's fine posters designed to resemble Nazi propaganda posters of the 1930s and 1940s and American WWII propaganda posters, "to use the themes of the past to avoid errors in the present -- by alerting Americans to the threat early enough for them to exert political pressure on our so-called leaders." Also, let's remind folks again to watch for the upcoming CBS-TV movie "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" May 18 and 20 which focuses on the conditions that allowed the rise of Hitler. You know, this is the one the producer was fired for making the comment that it's a "cautionary tale for modern America" ("Producer is casualty in Hitler miniseries"). In cyberspace, well, you know the drill; forward this column around to various lists. (And BTW, please keep the footer intact for attribution purposes; I had a problem with last week's LAotW in which an outfit called "Conservative Alerts" sent out my "Defend free speech rights" column without any attribution to their email list; they eventually did change their web page to give me proper credit, but never sent out a correction to their email list. I can't tell you what a shock it is to read YOUR own words on some other person's list, without getting credit. That's the first time it's happened, that I'm aware of, but I did want to mention it to prevent a repeat. Plagiarism is one of my hot button issues.) In cyberspace, the "Loyalty Day" proclamation has already had one positive impact, it inspired Dane Carlson to create "Libertyfilter," a community weblog devoted to libertarian (and Libertarian) and anarcho-capitalist outreach, links and commentary. Sign up and join in the first (that I'm aware of) libertarian community blog! Oh yeah, and if you help spread this meme in cyberspace, get out your asbestos britches. Neither the ruling elite or their useful idiots are fond at all of those who point out the similarities between the public attitudes in 2003 Neo America and 1930's Germany. Til next week Mary Lou |
